Salinas, Armenta blast LandWatch general plan
By KELLY NIX

Carmel Pinecone
Posted March 24, 2006

PROMINENT LATINO leaders spoke out this week against the LandWatch-backed Measure A, saying the initiative could reduce new affordable housing in the county, aggravate crime and eliminate local control over community planning.

County supervisors Simon Salinas and Fernando Armenta and others rallied against the slow-growth measure at a press conference in Salinas organized by Plan for the People, supporters of county supervisors' competing general plan. The initiative, they contend, will hurt the county's working class.

"We've worked hard over the years to empower the Latino community in Monterey County," said 3rd District Supervisor Salinas. "Measure A reverses those gains. It blocks needed affordable housing and eliminates all new housing outside of cities south
of Chualar."

The initiative directs growth in five unincorporated areas in the county and allows for about 10,000 residential housing units countywide. Supervisors' general plan, dubbed GPU4, allows about 21,000 units but provides about 900 more affordable homes. Voters will decide in June which plan they want, which will be the county's growth outline for the next 20 years.

The press conference, attended by Latinos who chanted anti-Measure A slogans, was held at Mountain View Town Homes, an affordable housing complex built by CHISPA and the type of development that opponents contend would be threatened if the initiative passes.

Alfred Diaz-Infante, president of CHISPA, said the initiative would interfere with his group's ability to build affordable housing in the county since the initiative would require a countywide vote for any amendments.

"We can't afford a half-million-dollar campaign to make any changes to the general plan," Diaz-Infante told The Pine Cone following the press conference, which was held in English and Spanish.

But Michael DeLapa, president of the board of directors for LandWatch, refuted some of the claims made by Plan for the People.

"Measure A, the community plan, has no impact on local control," DeLapa told The Pine Cone. "Rather, it lets voters, not the supervisors, decide what kind of future they want for their county."

DeLapa pointed to several Latino leaders who are supporters of the initiative, including Berna Maya, with the Salinas Valley League of United Latin American Citizens', Salinas City Councilman Tony Barrera, and Alonzo Gonzalez, former LandWatch board
member and Gonzales Unified School District Board trustee.

But Juan Uranga, executive director of the Center for Community Advocacy, said "Backers of Measure A want to take control away from local communities and give it to voters elsewhere who don't understand or care about our problems."

Plan for the People contend Measure A places all new low-income housing into what it calls high-density "planned ghettos," which it says could aggravate crime.

For information about Plan for the People, visit
www.planforthepeople.org. For information about
LandWatch, visit www.landwatch.org.